Five Reasons You Should Be Using Sitelink Extensions

Sitelink extensions have been a crucial part of SEM campaigns since their introduction to Google Adwords in 2009 and Bing Ads in 2012. However, many advertisers still aren’t taking advantage of this great feature.

So what are sitelink extensions exactly? Basically, they allow you to extend your paid search ad with links to additional pages of your website. Google allows you to have up to 20 sitelinks per ad group or per campaign. You can also use two 25-character lines of copy to describe each sitelink. Of course, Google won’t display all 20 of your sitelinks. Instead, Google’s algorithm will determine and display the sitelinks that are most relevant to the search query. It’s important to remember that your sitelink extensions won’t always display with your ad, like if your ad appears on the right-hand side of search results rather than at the top of the page.
Why should you use them? Here are five big reasons.

• They expand your real estate on the search results page. Instead of just three lines of copy at the top of search results, you can get six, or nine, or even 12. This pushes your competitors further down the page, maybe even to a position below the fold.
• Your ads become more relevant. While not all users will click on a particular sitelink, there will always be some that do. You can test different sitelinks’ effectiveness, much like ad copy testing. A lot of times, copy that doesn’t perform well as a standalone ad can be repurposed into very relevant sitelink descriptions.
• Sitelinks boost CTR. In a recent blog post on the subject, Google reports that most advertisers see a 10%-20% increase in CTR when using sitelinks extensions in their ads. Google has also reported that ads without sitelinks are harder to get into the top position in sponsored search results. Bing Ads reports a similar lift in CTR.

• It’s easy. The process of developing sitelinks is much the same as developing ad copy. You can do this under the Ad Extensions tab in Google Adwords and Bing Ads and in Adwords Editor and Bing Ads editor.
• No  additional cost. A click on a sitelink extension costs the same as a click on a normal ad. And don’t worry – multiple clicks on the sitelinks get treated as duplicate clicks, so you won’t be charged more than once.